Deepening democracy in Asia

A forum in Taipei yesterday titled “Democracy Building in Asia” brought together experts from Taiwan, the US and Asian countries. The forum was sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD) and the Institute for National Policy Research.

In one of the opening speeches John Chiang (蔣孝嚴), a Vice-Chairman of the KMT and board member of TFD, said it was timely to have the conference in Taiwan now that there have been two orderly and peaceful transitions of power and this shows that democracy can work in Asia.

Lin Wen-cheng (林文程), the President of TFD, speaking in the afternoon said that democratic countries should be more pro-active in promoting democracy in their foreign policy. Taiwan is the only country in Asia that has established a national foundation to promote democracy in the region. Lin said that other countries, especially Japan and South Korea, should establish similar organisations.

The need for greater regional efforts in promoting democracy was highlighted by the presentations of several foreign speakers. Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, President of the National Human Rights Society in Malaysia, said that Malaysia had a very good constitution that included a bill of rights when it obtained independence in 1957. However, since 1987 its democracy has been under attack. Malik emphasised the harm that had been done to the judiciary through sacking key judges who made decisions that went against the government and appointing crony judges.

Jarius Bondoc, a journalist from the Philippines, said that 67 journalists had been killed in the Philippines since 2001 and the harassment of journalists continues.

The first session in the morning was about legislative optimisation. It included talks by representatives of the Congressional/Parliamentary Research services from the US and India.

Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴), a former legislator and currently Director of International Affairs for the DPP, spoke about how procedure in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan could be improved to consolidate democracy. She identified four categories for change: (1) electoral system, (2) structure of the Legislative Yuan, (3) accountability and (4) quality of legislation.

With regard to the electoral system she said the new system, first adopted in the 2008 election, resulted in a the KMT winning a large majority with many more seats than the percentage of their vote. Small parties were also locked out by the new system. I raised a question about exactly how the system should be improved. Bi-khim replied the issue is being discussed by the DPP but there is no consensus within the party. There is also no consensus between parties on the issue.

Bi-khim also discussed how there was a need to change the committee system in the legislature. The current system offers advantages to members of certain committees who can use them to secure projects for their electorates. There is no consideration of professional skills or seniority in assigning legislators to committees. The rotation of committee chairs also leads to inconsistencies.

As well as reform of the legislature, judicial reform was the topic in the final afternoon session. Dr Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), Taiwan’s former representative in Washington and now a professor at NCCU, said Taiwan has consolidated its democracy through two transitions of power, but there were still important issues that need to be resolved.

Wu highlighted the cases of the Kaohsiung MRT, Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-fen and former President Chen Shui-bian as examples of problems in the judicial system. He said there was a need for serious reform of the judicial system. In particular there needs to be better monitoring of judges, judges should not maintain close relationships with prosecutors, there should be presumption of innocence and the recruitment of prosecutors and judges needs to be reformed. There is also a need to revise the criminal procedure code to limit the detention period, Wu said.

Wu said the top leadership must recognise there is a problem with the judiciary and ask top officials to research and investigate this. The government must accept whatever recommendations are made and put them into place.

Other media: The Taipei Times published an article about the forum. The China Post also has a report. The Taiwan News has a related editorial today on reform of Legislative Yuan.

Taiwan needs justice not persecution

For a long time I have wanted to write something about the detention of former President Chen Shui-bian. I have avoided it for a number of reasons. First, it has been painful to watch the downfall of someone I once greatly admired. Second, I find it hard to accept the animosity and vitriol that many people in Taiwan express toward A-bian. It is clear the KMT and its cohorts in the media have succeeded in convincing a significant percentage of people in Taiwan that A-bian is an evil monster who doesn’t even deserve basic human rights. As a result it is difficult to have a calm and rational conversation about the topic.

A must read article by Paul Katz (中文) at The China Beat finally prompted me to go back to this article that has been in draft for so long. Katz writes that 4 June marks the 185th day of Chen’s detention. That’s more than half a year. It’s too long. Remember that Chen was first detained on 12 November 2008 and not indicted until 12 December 2008. He was released and two subsequent appeals by prosecutors to detain Chen were rejected by the court. It was only after the much criticised switching of judges that Chen was detained again on 30 December 2008. He has been continuously in detention since then.

It is clear that Chen Shui-bian’s family have engaged in inappropriate financial dealings. Their actions should be investigated and tried before a court. All people are equal before the law and the fact a former President is on trial is proof of that. Nobody should escape justice because of any position they hold. It is important to remember though, there is a significant difference between doing something wrong and being found guilty in a court of law. The principles of being innocent until proven guilty and the right to a fair trial are fundamental.

From the beginning it was obvious Chen’s trial would be subject to great scrutiny and needed to be conducted to the highest judicial standards. Katz expresses it quite eloquently:

having a top-ranking politician found guilty after a trial deemed fair and impartial would constitute an immense boost in prestige for Taiwan’s judicial system, while also sending a crystal-clear message to all politicians facing similar forms of temptation. However, a conviction following proceedings that suggest Chen is presumed guilty and likely to be found guilty as well would represent a major step backwards, and risk causing a reversion to traditional views of the law as being simply a tool to enhance state interests.

Chen’s trial has been marked by ongoing events which show that the judiciary doesn’t adhere to the high standards that it should. There has been political interference in the appointment of judges, inappropriate behaviour by prosecutors and a lack of respect for basic principles of human rights. Chen’s detention has limited his ability to properly consult with his lawyers in preparing the case for his defense. Chen has a sharp legal mind and the chance to stand up and defend himself in a fair trial is something that he would have relished not run away from.

Ma Ying-jeou was charged with corruption in 2007 and subsequently acquitted. He did not spend a single day in detention. The double standard in Chen’s ongoing detention is clear and obvious. Katz further elucidates here:

detention of politicians on such charges is almost unprecedented. Over the years, numerous politicians of all stripes have been accused of corruption. Some have been found guilty and sent to prison, while others have been proven innocent. Only a small percentage has been subjected to detention (most are allowed the right to bail), although many suspects have fled the country and are currently living high on the hog (swine flu notwithstanding) in China and the U.S. Apart from Chen, however, no Taiwanese politician has been detained for such a long period of time on corruption charges without having first been convicted of a crime.

The real reason for A-bian’s ongoing detention has nothing to do with justice. The Taiwan News writes in its editorial today:

After all, the genuine source of the hatred against Chen has little to do with the question of whether he was really corrupt but lies in the fact that the human rights lawyer and fiery lawmaker and “upstart,” for all of his undeniable defects, led Taiwan’s grassroots Democratic Progressive Party in an electoral campaign that pulled the KMT down after nearly 55 years of unchallenged authoritarian and one-party dominant rule.

The Ma government had a great chance to show that it was genuinely committed to fighting corruption through Chen’s trial. Instead we got a circus, a kangaroo court and trial by media. There is no justice in Taiwan. The KMT continues to act with impunity while those that challenge its power are persecuted.

中文版：台灣需要公平正義而不是迫害

How the KMT constructs history

Last week I visited the KMT headquarters in Bade Road with some students from the Taiwan Studies program at NCCU. The ground floor is adorned with some large photos of Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) commemorating the 100th anniversary of his birth. On the ground floor there is also a small museum of the history of the KMT. As one would expect Sun Yat-sen (孫中山), Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chiang Ching-kuo all feature prominently. The narrative extends to Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) who is featured in many photographs depicting his presidential election campaign and subsequently as president.

But for those who know their Taiwanese history something is missing. Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), who served as the President of Taiwan and Chairman of the KMT from 1988-2000, can only be found in a handful of photos. Lien Chan (連戰), who succeeded Lee as KMT Chairman, features in more photos than Lee.

A 2008 pamphlet detailing the KMT’s history ( side 1 & side 2) also similarly neglects Lee’s role. It only has a single mention of him in a list of party leaders. The pamphlet doesn’t record that he was the first KMT leader ever elected as president through a popular vote. Nor does it mention the key role he played in leading Taiwan from the period of martial law to being a free and democratic country with its first democratic transition of power in 2000.

It is not just in the insular world of KMT headquarters that the party seeks to promote such a blinkered view of history though. A far more public struggle is currently going on over the naming and status of the former Jingmei Detention Centre in Taipei County. Many leading figures in the Tangwai movement, who later founded the DPP, were held there after the 1979 Kaohsiung Incident (美麗島事件). It was reopened as a Human Rights Memorial in December 2007.

I visited the Human Rights Museum several times after it opened. It was a profoundly moving experience that brought history to life. Prisons are places hidden behind barbed wire and walls and rarely looked into. To walk through the halls and look into the rooms is confronting and unsettling.

Now the KMT government has changed the name of this place from a human rights museum to the “Jingmei Cultural Park”. It wants it to be a place for artistic groups to practice and perform while removing things which are a reminder of the site’s dark past.

I wrote the Council of Cultural Affairs back in January about the museum’s closure but I never received a reply. The issue has been in the news in the last couple of weeks though. Yesterday human rights groups and associations of former political prisoners held a press conference to express their opposition to the government’s plan. The Taipei Times reported they had collected 400 signatures opposing the plan from DPP and KMT lawmakers, former political prisoners and 26 civic groups.

I visited the centre again today. A security guard initially told me that I could not enter because work was still going on, but after I challenged him he agreed that he had no right to stop me. Once inside I could access all parts of the site without any problems. The exhibition halls, which once had displays of the history of the White Terror period, have been cleared out. There was a small exhibition of art by students from NTNU on display in two of the halls.

A poster of Cheng Nan-jung (鄭南榕) still stands in one part of the prison, left over from an exhibition last year. It is as if Cheng’s defiant spirit lives on, unable to be silenced. Walking through the halls of the prison I read the names on the doors of the cells, luminaries in the history of Taiwan’s democratic movement: Shih Ming-teh (施明德), Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), Chen Chu (陳菊) and Wang Sing-nan (王幸男).

The Jingmei Detention Centre represents a profound and important part of Taiwan’s disturbing history. It must be preserved as a reminder of what happened during the period of White Terror. The KMT cannot simply erase the parts of history that don’t fit its grand narrative. Only by providing an honest and complete representation of Taiwanese history can it claim to genuinely represent the people of Taiwan.

Further reading

• Why Taiwan human rights history must be preserved – Taiwan News editorial
• 要人權！要歷史！要園區！ – 台灣人權促進會
• Taiwan Human Rights Memorial – photoset at flickr

Transitional justice and Taiwan

The International Center for Transitional Justice defines transitional justice as follows:

Transitional justice refers to a range of approaches that societies undertake to reckon with legacies of widespread or systematic human rights abuse as they move from a period of violent conflict or oppression towards peace, democracy, the rule of law, and respect for individual and collective rights.

In making such a transition, societies must confront the painful legacy, or burden, of the past in order to achieve a holistic sense of justice for all citizens, to establish or renew civic trust, to reconcile people and communities, and to prevent future abuses. A variety of approaches to transitional justice are available that can help wounded societies start anew.

It goes on to detail some of the approaches by which transitional justice can be achieved. These include both judicial and non-judicial methods. I think a key point is that transitional justice is not merely about seeking revenge or punishment for past wrongs. It also looks toward reconciliation, institutional reform and ensuring the wrongs of the past are not repeated.

So why has Taiwan failed to achieve significant transitional justice? I think it is first important to recognise that things have been achieved. Since the DPP came to power in 2000: the statues of Chiang Kai-shek are slowly but surely being removed, 228 has been declared a public holiday and the textbooks gradually rewritten.

The main obstacles to achieving more lies in the fact that the KMT still has a majority in the legislature and they have used this to stonewall the government. Also many current KMT officials may be guilty of human rights abuses, so they will use their position to avoid any potentially embarrassing probes into their past.

Another key point is that for many people, both victims and perpertrators of crimes, the past is just filled with too many things that are painful to look at. Memories have been repressed, both actively and as a natural response to trauma.

The Taiwan News on 23 July 2007 had an article titled, Scholars point out martial law mentality lingers long after era. In the article Yao Jen-to, an assistant professor of sociology at National Tsing Hua University, is quoted as saying:

“The former regime has made many Taiwanese live like walking corpses, living without passion. The 38 years of authoritative rule has also made them stop thinking, with many focusing only on how to make money,” Yao added.

The Foreigner on Formosa writes that “walking corpses” is something of an exaggeration, but his personal observation is that many Taiwanese are unwilling or unable to freely express their own opinions. I believe this problem also has its roots in the education system, which was also heavily shaped by KMT ideology and martial law.

During the martial law era while some people were victims or perpetrators, perhaps the majority probably just did their best to live their lives and stay out of trouble. In order to do this they may have had to maintain a silence refraining criticism of the government and turning a blind eye to abuses of human rights. This attitude persists today; people simply want to get on with their lives and not dig up the horrors of the past. As Taiwan is now relatively prosperous and free people see no reason to challenge the past.

It is a lack of transitional justice that underlies the deep political divisions that exist in Taiwan and remain the greatest obstacle to constitutional reform and the strengthening of democratic institutions. Vincent Wang wrote in the Taipei Times last year:

Up until now Taiwan’s democratization has been through a series of “transitions without justice.” Taiwan’s democratic transition, because of a narrow-minded focus on elections, is simply understood as transition of power, as unjust aspects of the system have not been thoroughly examined and corrected. In the glow of the transfer of power, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) forgot to be resolute about transitional justice.

One of the key issues remains that of the KMT Party assets. Jerome Keating writes:

The KMT had assets of over NT$27 billion which when matched to its liabilities left them with a net worth of over NT$25 billion dollars. The DPP was second with Assets of NT$339 million and a net worth of NT$253 million.

Now tell me in a democracy, just how does one party have assets over NT$25 billion and the total of all the other parties is less than NT$300 million; not even a third of one billion dollars. The answer of course can be found in approximately forty years of Martial Law and a one-party state and no transitional justice.

This will be an issue during the elections next year. Some might say the DPP is simply using the issue of party assets as a political wedge, but the issue is very genuine. These assets belong to the people of Taiwan. As long as they continue to be used to benefit one political party then they remain an obstacle to strengthening Taiwan’s democracy.

In May this year Nobel-laureate Desmond Tutu visited Taiwan to talk about transitional justice and reconciliation. There is probably no one more eminently qualified to speak on this topic. The Taiwan Journal records him as saying:

“This is a very delicate business, what you do in a transition,” Tutu remarked. “There is, on the one hand, the release, the joy, even the euphoria that a period of great suffering has ended. And when that happens, people will be singing in deep thankfulness and relief. But on the other hand, it is also a time of great sadness, because people, loved ones, were the victims of egregious violations of human rights: those who were tortured, secretly abducted, imprisoned, killed, possibly burned. And there is almost universally, in this kind of period, a deep hunger for the truth.”

“Frequently, there would be those who demanded that the culprits be brought to book, be arrested and arraigned,” he explained. “But the new dispensation of freedom is fragile, precarious, and it just might be that to pursue the ends of retributive justice might jeopardize the new order.”

“On the other hand, you want to ask, ‘Do you let the culprits go scot-free?'” Tutu continued. “Would they not repeat their awful deeds again, knowing they would not have to face the music? What to do in such a period is a real agonizing problem in this period of transition.”

There are no easy answers about the best way to achieve transitional justice in Taiwan. But it is important to remember the past in order to prevent the same mistakes being made in the future.